


accidentally self impose

by nosecoffee



Series: that colourful mess is just colourful regret [1]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: 1989 - 2016 The Missing Years, Angst, Bonding over trauma, Childhood Trauma, Domestic Bliss, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Genderswap, Getting Together, Haircuts, Hurt/Comfort, I feel like I’m writing them too soft but I don’t care at this point, Injury, I’m just diehard for them being soft wives, Nightmares, Romance, Sharing a Bed, Smut, Supportive Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-07
Updated: 2019-11-07
Packaged: 2021-01-21 03:48:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21293135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nosecoffee/pseuds/nosecoffee
Summary: (bashful thoughts, careless wants, emotional involvement)*There’s a moment of instant recognition that Eddie feels when she hears someone beside her say, “Whoa, does your mother know that you’re out, jailbait?”She looks up from her mocktail and frowns at the drunk woman looking down at her. Something about the coke-bottle glasses and the curly hair and the lanky, pale body as a whole is incredibly familiar, and for the life of her, Eddie can’t pin down what it is.Instead of voicing this familiarity, she pulls a sour face and says, “I’m twenty-three, fuck off.”
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Series: that colourful mess is just colourful regret [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1541383
Comments: 55
Kudos: 455





	accidentally self impose

**Author's Note:**

> Title from “Dream Boy” by Beach Bunny
> 
> Don’t @ me about the sex scene okay

There’s a moment of instant recognition that Eddie feels when she hears someone beside her say, “Whoa, does your mother know that you’re out, jailbait?”

She looks up from her mocktail and frowns at the drunk woman looking down at her. Something about the coke-bottle glasses and the curly hair and the lanky, pale body as a whole is incredibly familiar, and for the life of her, Eddie can’t pin down what it is.

Instead of voicing this familiarity, she pulls a sour face and says, “I’m twenty-three, fuck off.”

The woman whistles and makes herself at home on the other side of the booth Eddie was occupying herself. Eddie has half a mind to stand up and walk away, nowhere near being in the mood to deal with some drunk fuckwad with a tragically pretty face. “Oh, I like you, pipsqueak,” the woman grins, and gulps down a mouthful of beer from her glass. Froth remains on her upper lip like some kind of moustache when she lowers the glass, and at Eddie’s pointed stare she just grins wider.

Eddie drinks awkwardly through her straw and tries to convey annoyance as the woman looks her up and down, not even feigning subtlety. “Can I help you with something?” She asks in a rather rude tone of voice, hating how much she sounds like her mother in that moment.

“Oh, I’m sure you can,” the woman says, and Eddie leans back in her seat.

“You’re not very good at this,” she says and the woman suddenly frowns, confusion evident in her features.

“Pardon?”

“This. Flirting.” Eddie waves a hand roughly around the shape of the woman in front of her, and then smirks. “You suck at it. Suck _balls.”_

The woman raises an eyebrow and says, haughtily, “Well, I’ve only just started. Gotta give me a chance, shortstack.”

“Fucking stop with the nicknames,” Eddie snaps, and holds her straw with her teeth. Truth be told, this is one of the most interesting things to happen to her since her mother’s funeral seven months ago.

“Hows about you give me a name then?” The woman says, leaning on the table. “Here, I’ll even swap you. Richie Tozier, upcoming comedian.” She extends a hand for Eddie to shake and Eddie wonders if she still has hand sanitiser in her bag. Her therapist has been getting her to let loose a little more, get rid of useless hygiene products weighing her down. Eddie tries to remember if her hand sanitiser survived the purge.

Instead of shaking, she folds her hands against her torso and asks, “What’s Richie short for?”

Richie pushes out her bottom lip in a considering way, retracting her hand, and then says, “I’ll tell you if you give me your name.”

Eddie smiles and holds her hands up in surrender. “Guess I’ll live with the mystery, then.”

“Your loss, cupcake,” Richie shrugs, her whole body rolling with it. Eddie idly wonders how many beers she’s on. “It’s a _doozy.”_

“I’ll bet,” she agrees, distractedly. Eddie glances at the door. The bartender, looking her way gives her a sympathetic smile. Eddie looks away, feeling flushed with embarrassment.

“Whatcha drinking?” Richie asks, continuing on the dead conversation. Eddie will give her this, she’s persistent. “Maybe if I’m feeling nice I’ll buy you another.”

“Roy Rogers.”

“My god, not even alcohol? Baby, the night is young, why are you wasting it on a mocktail?”

“Alcohol messes with my medication.” At this, Richie raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t comment.

“Well then,” she says, “lemme buy you a Roy Rogers.”

Eddie cocks her head to the side. She has her long hair half up in a bun, with the rest flowing around her shoulders and elbows. “What’s in it for you?”

“Dunno.” Richie shrugs, and downs the rest of her beer in one go. It’s impressive but also really stupid which Eddie can’t seem to get past. “Maybe I’ll see you smile, maybe you’ll call me a fuckface, maybe you’ll do a one-eighty on me and decide I’m not too bad and you’ll come home with me.”

“Ah, so this is a long con to get in my pants?” Eddie gets to her feet, and Richie follows her up, almost on instinct. “Get lost.”

“Or maybe a long con to take you out to dinner,” Richie adds, and follows Eddie up to the bar. “Dunno about you, but I could see a future with you.”

“Maybe the beer is messing with your future sight, Rich,” she mutters, and puts up a hand to get the bartenders attention.

“Aw, a nickname.” Richie bumps their shoulders together. “See? You’re already warming up to me, sweetheart.”

“Dead wrong,” Eddie tells her and then orders another Roy Rogers. Richie butts in, adding another beer and saying to put it on her tab. Eddie doesn’t snark at that. One less drink she has to pay for, really. “Hey,” she says, “tell me why I feel like I’ve seen your face before.”

“Uh, I’ve done a few episodes of a shitty sitcom lately,” Richie has the shame to go a bit pink at this, and waves a dismissive hand as she goes on, “playing some punk rebel trying to lead someone’s son astray, if that’s the kind of thing you watch on the reg.”

Eddie moves past the casual use of _reg_ and shrugs, “Maybe I saw it in passing.”

“Maybe,” Richie agrees, “like I said, upcoming comedian, just you watch out.”

“Look both ways before I cross the street, got it,” Eddie says, smirking.

Richie laughs at that, “Bold of you to assume I’ll have a car when I’m rich and famous.” Bartender hands Richie her next beer and Richie takes a long drink from it before continuing, “I’ll just hire a limo to take me everywhere.”

“Planning on picking up a coke addiction?” Eddie asks, genuinely curious if that’s a goal people aim for. Richie takes it as a joke, though.

“Oh, at some point, once I’ve established myself in the comedy community,” she sighs. The bartender gives them a weird look that Eddie pointedly ignores. “Maybe I’ll audition for SNL.”

“I look forward to that day,” Eddie says, seriously. She does like seeing people succeed.

“Ya know, you look kinda familiar too, babe,” Richie tells her, and sips at her beer. “Seen you in anything?”

Eddie scoffs, “Oh, far from it. I work for a car hire company as a risk analyst.” Richie stops and kind of stares at her. Eddie wonders if this is because she’s too drunk to focus or if what Eddie just said is making her reevaluate.

It turns about to be the latter, as a moment later, Richie say to her, “That is one of the most boring jobs I have ever heard of.”

“Uh huh, and how much money do you earn, Miss Upcoming Comedian?” Eddie huffs. The bartender sets down her drink on the bar and Eddie picks it up, just for something to do with her hands. “How well are you financing your future coke addiction?”

“Oh, ha ha, you should be the fucking comedian, here, you’re so goddamn funny,” she only sounds like she’s half joking. Eddie shudders at the idea of writing this woman’s routine. She hopes if it ever comes to that she picks someone who’s actually funny. “I should pay you to write my jokes for you.”

“With what money?”

“I work _here,_ sometimes.” Richie leads them back to the table she joined Eddie at and sits back down on her side of the booth, seperated from Eddie by a slab of wood and and a table number with a list of specials post-it noted to the bottom. “They pay me pretty well, sometimes they let me test out bits on karaoke nights when things are slow.”

“Cool, cool, you sound _set for life.”_ Eddie comments, sitting down as well. They gave her a new straw. She begins to chew on the end of it instead of drinking. A lousy habit she picked up after moving to New York in her teens.

“Hey, I didn’t come over here to be taunted by some sober midget with a stupidly boring adult job,” Richie says sternly, pointing an accusing finger at Eddie, but Eddie knows she’s joking because she can’t help but crack a smile and huff out a bit of a laugh.

“What _did_ you come over to do?”

“We’ve established this,” Richie waves a hand, “I came over here to make you my wife, cupcake.”

Eddie snorts, “Yeah, and we’ve established that’s _not_ happening.”

“Well, I gave it a shot, we can at least say that,” she says, shrugging, Her curls bounce with the movement. Eddie kinda wants to put her hands in it. There’s no possible way to make her hair look worse, is there? Eddie kind of wants to know. “What are you doing here all by your lonesome, by the way? I forgot to ask.”

“Oh, a date, technically,” Richie raises her eyebrows and Eddie flips her the bird, adding, “but it’s been like forty minutes, so I guess he’s not coming.”

“Wait,” her eyes narrow and she scrutinises Eddie’s appearance, “are you straight?”

“As far as I know, yeah,” Eddie tells her, feeling a little weird about the lie. The truth is her mother wanted her to settle down, and forced her on date after date, and Eddie can’t seem to escape them now. She’s a little relieved the guy decided to ditch her. This is infinitely more fun than whatever he had to say.

“Shit,” Richie swears, looking decently embarrassed. “You mean I’ve been flirting with you for the last few minutes when you’ve never been interested in me?”

“‘Fraid so, Rich,” Eddie agrees, even though it’s not true. She is interested in Richie but she’s not sure if it’s attraction, yet.

“Dammit. That’s even sadder than my cameo appearances on shitty sitcoms.” She sinks into her booth seat, staring at the bar ceiling. “May as well off myself now, life can only get worse from here.”

“Oh, come on,” Eddie sighs, and then laughs at Richie’s pointed look, “leave your suicide attempt until you’re famous and coked up enough to make it count.”

Richie cracks a smile. “You’re really focused on this whole coke-addiction thing, aren’t you?”

“What can I say?” She shrugs, “You’d cut an awesome figure as a famous coke-addict.”

~

Richie walks her home, or rather, stumbles her home, way more intoxicated than Eddie thinks she meant for. They reach Eddie’s apartment building and Eddie kind of doesn’t trust Richie’s ability to walk back to her place without dying, so she says, “Do you wanna come up?”

Richie leers at her, leaning back too far to masquerade as sober. Eddie kind of regrets asking. “Now who’s trying to get into whose pants?”

“Not to fuck, you dickwad, to sleep.” She’s so seriously annoying, she wonders why she feels deep in her gut that she wants Richie around. “You look thirty seconds away from vomiting and-slash-or passing out.”

“Aw, you care about me,” Richie teases her, poking her shoulder, and Eddie holds the door open for her.  
  
“It’s common human decency to want you to not pass out in a gutter,” Eddie responds, following Richie towards the elevator.

Richie grins at her, leaning against the far wall of the elevator. “You _love_ me, you wanna _date_ me, you think I’m _pretty-”_

Eddie shoves her shoulder. “Shut up or I’ll kick you to the curb.”

“What happened to common human decency, cupcake?” The elevator doors close and they go up. Eddie watches the numbers change on the screen above the doors.

“Common human decency leaves the building when you flirt with me,” Eddie informs her dryly.

Richie raises her eyebrows. “I wonder how it’s been around since I met you.”

“It hasn’t,” she says, matter-of-factly, “I’ve been faking it.”

“Like orgasms during straight sex,” Richie comments, nodding sagely to herself. Then she cracks up.

“I seriously question how you expect to be a comedian when you laugh at your own jokes,” Eddie shakes her head and leads Richie out of the elevator as it stops on the sixth floor.

“Once I’ve heard them enough, I’ll get over the novelty.” Richie hums and shifts her weight from foot to foot as Eddie jiggles the lock to get the door to her apartment open. A second later it works and the door swings open. “Like fart jokes. They’re old and overdone, and I’m above that level of clownery, now.”

“Oh yeah?” Eddie says, mindlessly, and turns on the lights as Richie makes her way inside.

“Yeah.” Richie agrees. Eddie closes the door, waits for Richie to make eye contact and then says,

“Booger.”

Richie holds back laughter for a grand total of three seconds before collapsing onto Eddie’s couch, giggling. “Low blow, cupcake,” she wheezes as Eddie rounds the couch and surveys the drunk woman on her couch. Richie points an accusing finger. “I’m drunk, you can’t hit me with a classic like that while I’m incapacitated.”

“Just proving you wrong, Tozier,” Eddie shrugs, and Richie sits up properly, feigning seriousness.

“Hey,” Richie waves at her. Eddie crouches down by the end of the couch.

“What?” Eddie asks, lowering her voice.

“Tell me your name,” she whispers. Eddie wants to know what she’s whispering for. “‘Cupcake’ doesn’t really suit you.”

“Nope, not gonna happen.” And Eddie doesn’t really register it at first, but then she’s suddenly too close to Richie, and then suddenly she’s kissing Richie. Richie tastes stale like beer and cigarettes but it stops really mattering when Richie cocks her head just a tad and cups Eddie’s cheek and adds a bit of tongue.

If Eddie’s mother could see her now she’d have a heart attack and die all over again. Eddie lied when she said she was straight, but this is just more evidence for herself. It helps that Richie’s a pretty damn good kisser, not that Eddie has much point of reference.

Richie doesn’t chase her when Eddie slowly pulls away. “Hey,” Eddie says, and feels too soft, her lungs too small in her ribs, her stomach too restless. Richie makes her feel weird. Richie looks dazed, trying to focus on Eddie’s face, and it might be from the kiss but it’s probably the alcohol. “I think you need to rest.”

Richie doesn’t fight. She’s out when Eddie returns to the room with a blanket and a pillow. Eddie removes her glasses, putting them on the coffee table, and turns into bed herself.

That is the first time Richie Tozier sleeps on her couch. It is far from the last.

~

They don’t mean to become friends. That much is clear. Eddie gives Richie her mobile number (and her name) when they part the next morning.

“I knew it was gonna be an E name,” Richie tells her. “Elizabeth, Ella-“

“Edith.” Eddie grinds out, and looks up and down the y’all of her apartment floor. Anyone could be listening. She avoids giving her name to people if she doesn’t have to. Richie’s giggling, so she adds, “But _don’t_ call me Edith. I always feel like I’m in trouble.”

“Done and done,” Richie says, and mock-salutes.

Eddie instructs her to call in case she gets drunk again so she can have a place close by to crash. Then Richie wants her to come down a visit her at the bar when she’s working, and then Eddie gets two tickets to a band concert as a Secret Santa gift at work and needs someone to come along because she literally has no one else to ask.

And Richie sleeps on her couch and drinks her OJ and sings badly in the shower, but Eddie starts actually not minding. That’s just Richie.

They never talk about the fact they kissed on the night they met, but Eddie has no doubt that Richie remembers it. Doesn’t stop her from making straight jokes and pummeling Eddie about failed dates. She picks them apart for her own amusement and Eddie lets her, commenting stuff like, “How would you know, fuckface?”

Moments like that make Richie stop and when Eddie asks what’s up, Richie always replies something akin to, “I wanna wife you so bad.”

But it doesn’t mean anything.

~

Richie’s been sleeping on her couch, on and off for three months when Eddie decides enough is enough. She pads out into the living room, bare feet barely creaking the fake wood flooring.

“Richie,” she whispers into the darkness.

A hand flips over the top of the couch and waves a little, and then Richie sits up and rests her chin on the top of the couch. “Eds,” she replies, smiling blearily. She’s not wearing her glasses. Eddie kind of always forgets that her glasses really enlarge her eyes until Richie takes them off.

“Don’t call me that,” Eddie sighs, and rounds the couch to sit by her feet. “I wanna talk to you about something.”

Richie makes a face, a very specific face that twists and flattens out wrong, and says, “If it’s about the KFC in the fridge, I swear to god, I saved you some popcorn chicken.”

“You know I don’t eat fast food.” Eddie tells her and pats what she assumes is Richie’s thigh. “It’s not about that. It’s about your living situation.”

The face again. Eyebrows up, painful smile, flatten out again, and, “You mean my _lack_ of one?”

“Yeah.” Eddie agrees. She kicks at an empty coke can by her feet. Richie always picks up after herself but Eddie never sees her this late.

“Don’t worry your pretty little head over it, buttercup,” Richie yawns, looking withdrawn and a little pained. “I’ll be out of your hair pretty soon.”

Eddie sits up straighter, a little alarmed at what Richie is saying. “No,” she backpedals, “no, _that’s_ not-“

“Not _what?”_ Richie interrupts, tightly.

“I’m not _kicking you out,”_ she struggles to get out, looking at her feet. “I wouldn’t _do_ that.”

“You _wouldn’t?”_

Eddie turns and narrows her eyes at her companion, asking, “Do you really think so badly of me, asshole?”

Richie holds her hands up in surrender, “I don’t _know_ what to think of you, ‘cause I don’t know you, Eddie Spaghetti.”

The nickname kind of stuns them both into silence. Like the night she first saw Richie, she’s struck with this strange sense of recognition that she can’t quite place, a sour taste on her tongue that reminds her of long forgotten memories from childhood, a smell in her nose of wet dirt and bubblegum and blood. 

Eddie breaks from this reverie first, shaking away the feelings that slip through her fingers like grains of rice before she can get a proper hold of the, before she can look them in the face and see them for what they truly are. “I mean,” she clears her throat and Richie’s attention slips back onto her, “I’d hope you’d know me at this point, you’ve been sleeping on my couch for months.”

“I know your _couch_ pretty well, also know your bathroom pretty well,” she clicks her tongue, and grins in a way that doesn’t meet her eyes, “not too sure about you Spaghetti.”

Eddie, suddenly overcome with frustration at Richie, shoves her shoulder and groans, “God, could you _not_ make it so hard to be nice to you when I’m _trying_ to be nice to you?”

Richie stares at her, “What-“

“Move in with me, jackass,” Eddie says, and watches Richie, lit only by the moon through the open curtains, face journey through this request.

“At least invite me to dinner first,” is what she comes up with in terms of a response, and Eddie snorts.

“I’m serious,” she says, and pulls her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around her shins. She can’t hide behind a curtain of hair, right now, it’s all tied back in a long braid down her back for sleeping. “I’ll move my shit out of the study, we can buy you a bed and stuff. You’re basically paying rent anyway.”

“Eds, you don’t have to do that.” Richie reaches out and Eddie instinctively takes her hand. It’s warm and rough but it’s nice. She hasn’t held hands with anyone since she still carried hand sanitiser with her everywhere.

“I can’t let you couch surf when I know there’s something I can do to help.”

“Eddie.”

Eddie looks at her, and sees that Richie’s not even fighting anymore. “Richie.”

~

Richie moving in with Eddie isn’t as smooth as either of them would like. Richie gets a bunch of boxes out of a storage unit and basically trails in garbage when she enters the house. Moving all Eddie’s shit out of what used to be the study and is now Richie’s room is a team effort, and they give up multiple times, due to infighting, dropping things on each other feet, and lunch breaks. Eventually they get it done and spend three hours putting together Richie’s newly bought bedframe and moving everything else in.

Then Eddie has to deal with the way Richie lives when she’s settled in which, if she’s being honest, is just unhygienic. Eddie books an extra session with her therapist to deal with it so she doesn’t fall into a spiral of sanitising everything to the point where she scrubs her skin raw, afraid of microorganisms and diseases.

She doesn’t tell Richie this. She just snaps at her to pick up her shit when she leaves knickknacks lying around, when she doesn’t rinse her dishes before putting them in the dishwasher, when she leaves garbage on the kitchen counter or in the living room or in the bathroom. And Richie does, and Eddie hopes it’s because she has a sense of self preservation and not because she can see the live wire of panic and dread in Eddie’s eyes.

And yeah, Richie has a bunch of disgusting habits that Eddie needs to learn to get past, but Richie’s working hard to make this run well, so Eddie’s trying to do the same.

They barely see each other as time goes on, between Eddie’s nine-to-five job and Richie’s night owl shifts at bars and sitcom episodes she pokes in on. None of them are good, but she’s got an IMDB page, now. She’s getting out there. Eddie tells her to work on original material and Richie calls her _sugarplum_ and asks her to write it for her.

~

Richie does a few open mic nights and comes back from all of them blind drunk.

“I suck,” she tells Eddie, spitting into the toilet. Eddie grabs a hair tie to hold back Richie’s hair so she can wipe down the toilet seat with a wet wipe and pat Richie’s back. “Like, I suck absolute balls, Eddie.”

“That’s not true,” Eddie replies, lightly. She has a meeting tomorrow morning, but right now Richie takes precedent.

“Yes, it is.” Richie insists, and dry heaves again. Her glasses sit on the floor by Eddie’s packet of wet wipes. When Richie sits back on her knees, there are tears rolling down her cheeks. Eddie insists to herself it’s the bodil reaction to vomiting, but she feels so awful about it, anyway. “Pity laughs, that’s all I’m getting. I should just give up, get an adult job like you. Stop waking you up in the middle of the night to deal with my breakdowns.”

Eddie shrugs and sits back against the wall, opposite Richie who seems to have calmed her stomach down. She closes her eyes and wipes her cheeks and Eddie says, “What are friends for?”

“You’re not my therapist,” Richie groans.

“Do you even _have_ a therapist?” Eddie asks, curiously.

“No.”

“Look, Richie, stop trying to be the best immediately.” Richie’s eyes open and she looks at Eddie with this curious tinge to her expression. “Pity laughs is _something._ It’s not dead silence. It means people are at least paying a little attention.”

Richie smiles a little and asks, “You gonna coach me now?” Her voice is croaky and Eddie has no doubt she’ll be feeling all of tonight's mistakes hard tomorrow.

“I mean I can if you want me to,” Eddie says, suspiciously, “but I won’t if you’re just gonna tease me.”

“Oh, I’m not,” Richie assures her, leaning back against the wall, again, “I’m genuinely intrigued that you’re making sense.”

“You just need to craft everything carefully, start with something people can connect with, don’t get too personal, don’t get too deep.” She nudges Richie’s ankle with her foot and smiles a little when she startles from a daze. “Save that stuff for when you’re big enough that they want to give you your own late night show.”

“That’ll never happen, Eddie,” Richie says, but gives her a small laugh.

“Not with that attitude it won’t, fuckface,” Eddie says and gets to her feet, picking up her wet wipes and handing Richie her glasses. She really can’t afford to be up much longer. “Now, drink some water, go to bed, and we’ll talk about it in the morning.”

~

Eddie is woken up at seven-oh-eight two days later to a notebook being slapped down at the foot of her bed. She struggles upright on her elbows. Richie looks a little less like death than she did a few nights ago. She still looks awful, though.

“Tell me how to fix this.” She says, and Eddie picks up the notebook, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “I need your help.”

“At least let me have some coffee first,” Eddie groans. This isn’t how she planned to spend her Saturday morning, but she said she’d be there for Richie so she better actually be there.

“I’ll go get you some.” And they spend the whole morning, seated on Eddie’s bed, talking through the bits and pieces Richie’s cobbled together. By the time noon rolls around, Richie’s got a whole new story to tell and looks pretty confident in herself about it.

(Next open mic night, she still comes home drunk, but it’s from all the drinks this talent scout bought her after watching her little act. Both of them write off the kiss Richie gives her, whispering thank you into her lips, as Richie being drunk and excited, and Eddie being half asleep.)

~

Richie actually picks up a career in comedy. It’s crazy, but the talent scout who found her at the open mic night actually helps her out. Eddie and Richie huddle on the couch, swapping ideas, talking through bits, yelling at each other, storming off, and eventually they come away with something worth showing.

Richie shows it to the scout who in turn finds Richie an agent, who hires Richie a manager, who books Richie a gig and she’s off like a shot.

She’s got gigs left and right, suddenly, and the money starts rolling in a lot faster and a lot more than it used to, and Eddie watches as Richie becomes more and more successful as time goes on.

It’s been a year since Eddie met her, some drunk woman in a pub hitting on her, and now look at her. Eddie aches with pride for her friend, and sits back to watch.

~

They’re planning on doing a tour. Which is fantastic. Richie’s ecstatic and also terrified. Eddie can’t blame her. It seems like everything’s just racing by.

It’s gonna be ten stops and then they’ll tape it to be aired on television, so long as Richie’s not too vulgar. Everything seems to be going right.

And then Eddie wakes up in the middle of the night to hear Richie screaming next door. Immediately she assumes _burglar, murderer, oh fuck,_ and races to get her baseball bat out of her closet. However, the minute she busts into Richie's room to beat the shit out of whoever’s there, all she sees is Richie tossing and turning in bed, asleep, mumbling things like, “That’s my hair, that’s my face, that’s my name, that’s my age, that’s the date! No it says that, it says, what the fuck! Am I missing? When did I go missing? What the fuck, Bill-“ and then she’s screaming again.

Eddie drops the baseball bat which hits the carpet softly, and kneels on the bed, grabbing ahold of Richie’s wrists, who in turn thrashes in her grip, screaming, “No, no, please, you have to listen!”

“Richie,” Eddie shakes her, getting more and more scared. Who was Bill? Richie never mentioned anyone from her past but her parents. “Richie wake up!”

“Am I missing?” Richie screams again, her back arching in an attempt to free herself. “When did I go-“

“You’re not missing! Richie you’re right here!” Eddie shakes her again, and feels her right arm twinge for some reason. “Wake up, you’re having a nightmare!”

And just like that, Richie’s eyes snap open. Her wrist, still caught in Eddie’s hand twists slowly and she reaches up, blearily, cupping Eddie’s cheek. “Eddie?” She asks, voice hoarse from the screaming.

Something about this feels meaningful, much more meaningful than leaning over this woman who’s brought so much colour to her life and seeing her recover from something frightening. A tiny part of her in the back of her brain speaks for her when she says, “Yeah, it’s me.”

Something in Richie’s expression breaks and she’s pulling away, immediately. “Fuck,” Richie spits, and twists her hair around her fingers, pulling hard on it, “Jesus fuck.”

“Are you alright?” Eddie asks, sitting down properly on the edge of Richie’s bed.

“Yeah, no, I’m good,” she replies, waving the question away, and adjusts her sleep shirt. Unlike Eddie, she doesn’t wear pyjama pants to bed. “Sorry I disturbed you. Probably should have warned you before I moved in that I have really bad nightmares sometimes.”

“Me too.” Eddie finds herself admitting. She scratches the back of her neck, awkwardly. “I can never remember them after, though.”

“Me neither,” Richie responds, and pulls her knees up to her chest. She smirks, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “Ha, what a pair we make.”

Silence. Eddie never knows what to do after she’s woken up from a nightmare. “You were shouting stuff about being missing,” she hears herself saying. “Talking to someone called Bill?”

Richie shuffles. “I don’t know anyone called Bill.”

“Huh, weird.” She watches as Richie gets up to get something off her chest of drawers. “What are you doing?”

“My mom did this for me when I was younger.” Richie says, and Eddie sees she’s holding a perfume bottle. She sprays her wrist, and then the space on her neck just below her chin. “I think it’s like psychosomatic now? ‘Cause I just smell perfume and feel - calm.”

Eddie holds out her wrist and after a moment of mild confusion, Richie sprays her wrist as well. “I have psychosomatic asthma,” Eddie tells her.

“...what?” Richie asks, setting the perfume bottle down on the chest of drawers. It’s about a third empty. Given everything she knows about Richie it’s likely that she on;y uses it for nightmares. Eddie wonders how many she’s had.

“Um. My mom really fucked me up.” Eddie says, and clears her throat. She’s only ever really talked about this with her therapist. “Through my whole childhood she convinced me I was sick all the time. That I had asthma and a plethora of allergies and that anything could give me diseases. I became a hypochondriac and became obsessed with being clean.” Eddie thinks about the aspirator she left sitting in her bedroom when she moved out to college. Her mother didn’t stop calling for a week, leaving voicemail after voicemail, _Eddie-Bear, you left your aspirator at home, what if you have an asthma attack? Do you want me to bring it to you? Eddie please call me back._ She didn’t. Eddie remembers the screaming match she’d had with her mother once she realised all of what she’d been telling Eddie for her whole life was bullshit. “Turns out she was lying to me, telling me I was delicate and fragile so she could keep ahold of me for as long as she could. The minute she died I went into therapy, and now I can keep those urges in check, but whenever I have a panic attack, I feel like I can’t breathe, because she told me it was asthma.”

Richie sits down beside her on the bed and says, sincerely, “That’s _so_ fucked.”

“I know right?” Eddie almost laughs.

They both lean back against the headboard and occasionally Richie will raise her wrist to her nose and inhale deeply. Eddie watches as her breathing slows and the tension runs out of her body. Eddie does the same and feels surprised that this tactic works. In fact she’s pretty sure she’s drifting off to sleep when she hears Richie say, “I really like you.”

“Okay,” Eddie says, quietly, not really registering the words.

Silence. Eddie barely notices. “No,” Richie continues, slowly, and Eddie hums in response, sleep wrapping its claws around her, pulling her deep down. “Like, I really _really_ like you, Eds.”

It releases her because she kicks and claws and fights to the surface. Her eyes open and she turns to look at Richie. Richie stares back meaningfully. “Don’t call me that,” Eddie whispers. It feels like the most rational thing to say.

“Eddie.” Richie says, “Please.”

From there it’s a simple progression of shuffling closer and cupping Richie’s cheek. Richie inhales and puts a hand on Eddie’s waist. It’s so scary because it’s so sure. There’s no way it could actually happen with this much certainty.

But it does. And when she kissed Richie this time, she doesn’t pull away. Richie smells deeply of perfume. Eddie sinks into it.

~

They’re making out on Richie’s bed, a week later, after a bunch of negotiation and the doling out of titles such as girlfriends and partners, and Eddie is sitting atop Richie’s hips, occasionally pulling off items of clothing the more heated things get. At this point, Eddie’s hair is out and messy, her cardigan and button-up on the floor, and Richie’s shirtless in her sweatpants.

“Is this a mistake?” Eddie asks her between kisses. Richie’s hand moves down her thigh and then runs the tips of her fingers along the seam of her jeans between her legs. Eddie shudders, suddenly glad that Richie’s nails are bitten down to the beds. That being said, she is a bit afraid, having never been with another woman before.

“God, I hope not,” Richie responds, and sits up to gain access to Eddie’s jeans. Her button pops open easily and the zip slides down quickly. Richie’s hand isn’t far behind, dipping under her panties. “If this is a mistake it’s got to be the best mistake I have ever made.”

“Richie,” Eddie sighs, and moves with the movements of her hand, clutching Richie’s biceps. The muscles in the arm connected to the hand currently in Eddie’s pants roll under Eddie’s fingers and Eddie doesn’t think she’s ever been more turned on in her life. Richie leans in and bites at Eddie’s neck. Eddie’s so glad she wears shirts with collars to work. She’s so glad Richie chose the junction of her neck and shoulder to utterly abuse with her mouth. She’s so glad Richie is here, with her, touching her, loving her, and not anyone else.

“Okay, my hand is gonna cramp, you gotta get those pants off, baby,” Richie says, breaking away and pulling her hand from inside Eddie’s panties.

“Don’t call me that,” Eddie spits even as she gets up and starts stripping out of her pants. She hops on one foot to get it out of the leg of the jeans and ends up facing the wall There’s a small mirror there, and Eddie looks so disheveled it’s scary. Her cheeks are red, her mouth wet and scarlet, and there’s a bruise beginning to form on her neck. She can see the bare outline of Richie, behind her, mostly hidden by Eddie’s own reflection, laying back on the bed.

She takes off her bra and Richie whistles.

“Sir yes sir, Eddie Spaghetti,” she chuckles from behind her.

Eddie rolls her eyes and takes off her panties as well, and says, “Go fuck yourself.”

“I’d rather fuck _you.”_ Richie’s pupils blow out when Eddie turns, fully naked. She goes all pink and gapes like a fish on land and makes grabby hands at her, “Oh my god, get over here and ride my face already.”

Eddie snorts, but moves towards her, letting Richie lift her onto the bed, over her body. “You’re so vulgar,” she comments, without heat.

Richie lies on her back and yanks Eddie up towards her face, discarding her glasses by the pillows, “I can think of a better use of my mouth if you’d just-” She adjusts Eddie by her hips, where she hovers over her mouth, and then pulls her down.

Eddie moans loudly, and then covers her mouth, afraid of what the neighbours will think. The fear dissolves quickly, as Richie massages her asscheek, using it as leverage to get a better angle at her pussy. Eddie kind of keels over, planting her hands on the mattress in front of her, over Richie’s head. Her hair is inky black and curls across the dark comforter. Eddie’s going to make her wash it after this.

In a matter of seconds, it seems, Eddie’s basically humping Richie’s face, one hand still planted on the comforter, the other, curling into the hair at the back of Richie’s head, cupping it against the mattress, so close it’s scary. Richie’s ridiculously good at this, and it seems to Eddie, who’s too out of her mind to truly focus, that she hasn’t come up for air once.

“Richie, Richie, oh my god,” she moans, and Richie breaks away, only moving slightly so she can dig her teeth into Eddie’s inner thigh, the hand not cupping Eddie’s ass moving between her legs to replace her mouth and rub at her clit until Eddie comes with a long moan, her teeth still in the meat of Eddie’s thigh.

“Sorry, bub,” Richie sighs as Eddie rolls off of her, breathing harshly as she stares at the ceiling, Richie rolls half on top of her, suddenly wearing her glasses again and grins, her chin wet, her lips red, her eyes watery and smiling. “My mouth got tired at the end there, hope you can’t blame me for alternating.”

“Well, you didn’t die of oxygen starvation between my legs, did you?” Eddie asks, sounding out of breath. All she can focus on is Richie. She never wants to move again. She just wants to stay here, blissed out on Richie’s bed, kissing and whispering for the rest of time. She will need to shower, though, and wash these sheets.

“Nope, I didn’t, though that’d be one hell of a way to go out,” Richie agrees, and kisses the joint of Eddie’s left shoulder and arm, breaking Eddie form her reverie. “Now, may I pretty please with a cherry on top fuck you?”

Eddie double-takes this request, and splutters, “Didn’t you just do that? Shouldn’t _I_ be offering to fuck _you?”_

“I mean, you could, but I was just warming you up.” Richie gets up, leaving Eddie to stare at the ceiling and think, bewildered to herself _that was a warm up?_ Then she looks up and follows Richie’s movement to the bottom drawer of her bedside table, emerging with a red dildo and a strap-on harness. She turns, holding them both in her hands and gives Eddie a wink, saying, “I was hoping to actually fuck you before the night is out.”

“Is that a strap-on?” Eddie says, her voice cracking halfway through the question.

“You bet your perky little tush it is.”

_“Why_ do you have a strap-on?”

“Why does any self respecting lesbian have a strap-on?” Richie replies. She sits down on the bed beside Eddie again, and kisses her, lightly. “To fuck pretty girls, of course.”

Eddie frowns, and Richie laughs. “But you haven’t had sex in _months,”_ she says, sounding too confused for this moment.

“I bought it before I knew you, sugarplum,” she informs her, kissing her cheek and the corner of her jaw and her neck.

“We have _talked_ about the nicknames,” Eddie sighs, and sinks into the touch.

“Oh, I know we have, but seeing you all pretty and post-orgasm is awakening a need to call you by nicknames, and who am I to pass on needs like that?” Richie picks up the dildo from where she discarded it on the comforter. “If it makes you feel better, I always clean this after use.”

Eddie’s mind kinda goes blank at the knowledge that this is something she’s used multiple times, possibly even on herself and all she can choke out is, “I-”

Richie probably sees her struggle because she puts a hand on Eddie’s knee and says, “I mean, you don’t _have_ to let me fuck you, the ball is in your court there, but I’ll totally let you be on top again, and then if I don’t cream myself purely from watching you get off, you can fingerbang me after.” Her cheek arches with a small crooked smile. A lock of hair falls in her eyes. She looks almost bashful despite the bold suggestion she’s made, despite eating Eddie out only a few minutes ago. “Sound good?”

It’s Eddie’s turn to gape like a fish, but Richie doesn’t make any moves during the time that she takes to get her thoughts together, which is incredibly respectful of her, and Eddie half expected her to be really cruel in bed, when she’s actually really considerate and caring and, yeah, cocky, but she lives up to the attitude.

So then Eddie says, “Yeah okay,” and Richie grins and gets up to take off her pants, replacing them with the harness of the strap-on. When she crawls over Eddie’s body, a bottle of lube in hand, she pauses as she looks at Eddie’s spread thighs. The section she bit into while she got Eddie off it still red and there’s drying saliva on it which would normally gross Eddie out but right now it’s just really hot. It’s beginning to purple and bruise, hundreds of burst capillaries just under the surface of her skin displaying the ferocity Richie had displayed in the moment when Eddie came.

“That’s hot,” Richie says, running a finger across the area. “You’re so pale, any mark is really stark on you, huh?”

“Could you just fuck me?” Eddie huffs, and lets Richie redirect her to sit against the pillows. “I don’t need a running commentary.”

“One hell of a commentary track though,” Richie laughs, and then slicks her fingers up with lube. Eddie looks down and the black harness swipes darkly against Richie’s freckled skin, and the red dildo swings between her legs like a real hard cock. Eddie shudders before Richie even begins to touch her.

The fingering is hot. Eddie’s already really wet from the way Richie ate her out earlier, so it’s a really quick progression from fingering to hovering on her knees over Richie’s lap as they figure out the logistics of the dildo. It doesn’t take too long until Eddie is sinking down, and Richie’s glasses are on this time. She staring right into Eddie’s eyes, gaging her reactions. Eddie grips Richie’s shoulders as she adjusts to the thickness of the dildo, and Richie runs her hand over her bare shoulder and arm and wrist before taking her right hand in hers.

They press palms together and then Richie frowns and pulls Eddie’s palm towards her face to inspect. “What?” Eddie asks, breathlessly. “Going to read my palm?”

“You have a scar on your hand.” Richie says, almost as if that’s an answer.

“Yeah,” Eddie agrees, confused. “That’s been there forever.”

Wordlessly, which is incredibly uncharacteristic for Richie, she lifts her right hand to show off the slice of a scar across her palm, almost identical to Eddie’s. “What?” Eddie says, again, confused, but Richie just presses their hands together, laces their fingers, and thrusts her hips up.

Eddie gasps and tips her head back, mouth opening as she shakes with the feeling of it. And Richie ends up doing most of the work because Eddie turns to jelly in her hands, and is utterly useless. In the end, Richie tips her onto her back, pulls Eddie’s thigh over her hips and fucks into her ferociously until Eddie comes, arching against the comforter.

Richie doesn’t even comment that Eddie’s a pillow princess like Eddie knows she wants to, she just lets Eddie undo the harness once she’s come down from her second orgasm, and finger her slowly while they kiss. She comes with a drawn out sigh into Eddie’s mouth, and gets her breathing under control again against Eddie’s neck.

Eddie insists they shower, and once they’re done, with only minimal fooling around under the water, they crawl into Eddie’s bed, because Eddie refuses to sleep in the sheets they just fucked on. Eddie stares at the ceiling for a while and then says, quietly, “You know, the moment I met you, I felt like you were an old friend of mine.”

“Oh yeah?” Richie responds, just as quietly.

“Like the familiarity was there, but not in the way like I had seen you on TV in passing,” Eddie explains. She turns on her side to look at Richie who is already looking back at her. Her glasses sit on the bedside table, and her hair is beginning to curl around her face as it dries. Eddie feels warm. “Like I blinked between kindergarten and now and you’re still there with me.”

“You didn’t know me then. In kindergarten, I mean. Or before that. Thank god, I was a mess before you met me.” Richie laughs but it sounds mirthless. She looks a little empty, like that time of her life was draining. Eddie’s kind of glad she took the time to joke with her that night. “When you met me, I was coming off the back of a bender. I had no prospects. I had nothing. And then there was you.” She cups Eddie’s cheek and Eddie aches.

“I know I didn’t know you then, but that’s what it felt like,” she whispers, and even she’s not fool enough to think she’s not falling in love with Richie Tozier. “It felt like I’d been waiting to meet you before I knew you existed.”

“Be glad you didn’t meet me back when I still did ecstasy,” Richie says, and closes her eyes.

Eddie barely registers it, but still asks, “You did ecstasy?”

“Briefly.” Richie yawns. “But I was such a dick back then.”

~

After Richie’s initial tour, lovingly dubbed _Trashmouth,_ she starts getting serious attention. She’s in news articles, on TV, on the third pages of magazines and whatnot. It’s weird, but also really cool. Eddie continues going into work every day, doing her job, and then she comes home and there’s Richie, cooking, or sitting on the couch writing something, and she’ll kiss Eddie, and help her undo her hair from it’s long braid. It’s really nice.

Eddie doesn’t mind Richie avoiding telling people about her, because she does the same thing. Her coworkers are aware she has a partner of sorts, courtesy to a careless hickey that neither Eddie nor Richie thought about covering up, and Richie’s manager and agent know Richie lives with Eddie and they’re a little closer than friends but it doesn’t get questioned beyond that.

Eddie kind of prefers it that way. However, it’s 2004, and Eddie’s twenty-eight, and careless. She’s in love, how can she not be? And it was bound to happen that they’d come back from a date holding hands, kiss at a pedestrian crossing, waiting to cross, and suddenly the pictures are splashed across gossip magazines and in the current affairs portion of the news.

They call Eddie Richie’s _dirty little secret,_ and Richie’s team kind of shuts down while they scramble to figure out what to do. Apparently there’s been an influx of homophobic fan mail sent Richie’s way, which is insane.

So they stay holed up in their apartment for a few days, and they yell at each other and sleep apart for a while, and then they slowly forgive again, Eddie climbing into Richie’s bed, smelling of perfume, Richie climbing into Eddie’s shower and kissing the back of her neck, helping her shampoo and conditioner all her hair.

It slowly sorts itself out. Richie’s agent tells her to write a bit they can televise, something about the pictures, about Eddie, if that’s okay, so that they can come clean and move on. It’s not a scandal, she tells them, just not something people were expecting. Eddie still feels a little patronised, but she doesn’t fight.

They recover, they move on. They forget.

~

_“The first time I ever met my girlfriend, she’d been stood up on a date and she wouldn’t tell me her name.”_

The Richie on screen grins at the audience, raising her eyebrows, and daring the audience to take a swing at her. The Richie sitting beside her squirms uncomfortably. She’s always hated her TV appearances, from the early stupid sitcom appearances to now, the release of her first Netflix comedy special. It’s 2012, and Eddie still can’t believe they’ve managed to stay together for nearly ten years. Then again, it makes a lot of sense.

_“I spent the entire evening pestering her, trying to wheedle her name out of her. Asking people around the bar, it got to the point that I walked her home and passed out on her couch after asking her to tell me her name. She told me the next day when she gave me her number to call in case I needed a place to crash again, and so I slept on Edith Sarah Kaspbrak’s couch for four months before she asked me to move in with her.”_

Eddie whips around on her and Richie starts wheezing.

“You told _a room full of strangers_ my _full_ name?” She seethes.

Richie shudders with laughter, “I’m sorry, this is _so_ funny-“

“Oh my _god,_ Richie, the _nerve_ of you-“

_“Yeah._ Edith Sarah Kaspbrak. _It took me literal years to find out her full name. She hides her wallet, her documents are in a lockbox in her office, she’s always the first one home so she’s always first to get the mail. For a while there I kind of thought I might be dating a serial killer or a catfish? Turns out she’s just a very private person and I feel privileged enough to know Edith Sarah Kaspbrak’s full name that I’m telling it to all of you now.”_

Eddie whacks her arms a bunch until Richie hushes her and points to the screen. “This is a good part.”

_“Oh, and can I tell you a secret?”_ Richie on screen says, grinning, but even Eddie can see the signs and fidgeting that means Richie’s nervous.

“You didn’t practice this with me,” Eddie hisses.

Richie rolls her eyes, pointing to the screen again. “‘Cause it was a _surprise,_ asshole.”

_“When this gets aired, and I sit down to watch it with my girlfriend, Edith Sarah Kaspbrak, that is when I’m gonna whip out this ring, and ask her to marry me.”_ Eddie stares at the screen, at where Richie, a few months younger, is holding a green velvet ring box, and grinning at the audience. There’s some cheering from the screen. _“But no telling. No whispering. No tweeting me. She’ll see, it’ll be awful and ruin it and she’ll maybe yell at me which, while sexy, is not the goal of this exercise so keep this between you and me, okay?”_

Eddie swivels in her seat and Richie slides off the couch entirely and onto one knee. Eddie doesn’t know what to do. The Richie on their TV screen keeps talking, but her Richie, the real older Richie kneeling on their stained carpet, holding a green velvet ring box just stares up at her, mutely.

There’s a moment where none of them move. Eddie’s holding the hem of her cardigan like a fucking lifeline. Richie shuffles and looks away for a moment before looking up with an awkward smile and saying, “So…?”

Eddie laughs and that’s when she realises she really wants to cry because a sob bubbles up her throat and her eyes begin to cloud. “You fucking idiot,” she chokes out, “you didn’t actually ask me.”

Her eyes widen with recognition and she goes a little pink. “Okay, sorry,” Richie clears her throat, opens the ring box and gives her a cheesy grin, saying, “Eddie Kaspbrak will you-”

Eddie tackles her onto the carpet, _“Yes,_ oh my god-”

~

Eddie’s at home, making dinner, sipping on some iced tea when her phone rings. And it’s Richie ringing, which really shouldn’t be happening. Richie’s show started ten minutes ago. Which means something’s _wrong._

She hits answer and then speaker, and says, voice shaking, “Richie? What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

_“Eddie, hey, it’s Steve.”_ Steve, Richie’s manager, not Richie. Shit.

Eddie grips the edge of the kitchen counter hard and asks, “Steve why the fuck are you calling me on my wife’s phone?”

_“Richie’s not doing good.”_ Steve says apologetically. _“She needs to go home. Can you come get her?”_

“Of course,” Eddie says, automatically. She switches off the stove, grabs her keys off the counter, along with her phone and heads for the door. “What’s happened?”

_“Dunno.”_ She’s known Steve long enough, had dinner with him enough, travelled with him for part of Richie’s tours with him enough to know he’s telling the truth. She can tell he’s confused and a little scared. And that makes Eddie scared, too. _“She went on all frazzled and then a couple minutes in just runs off and vomits in the wings.”_

“Oh fuck, might be gastro. That’s going around right now.” There’s been a weird feeling in the air all day, the hair on the back of her neck standing on end, like part of her knee something would happen. She locks the front door and says, “I’ll be there in fifteen. Tell her to hang on.”

_“Done and done. See you, Eddie.”_

“Bye Steve.” She hangs up and sprints down the hall.

Now, Eddie doesn’t speed. That’s a thing she’s sincerely against. But for Richie she’ll do just about anything. Like speed. Like pick up her phone while she’s driving because what if it’s Steve calling to say Richie’s died or having a seizure or something?

“Steve, what’s up?” Eddie asks, hurriedly, eyes on the road. Green light ahead. She presses her foot down on the accelerator.

_“Uh, this is Mike Hanlon, actually. Is this Eddie Kaspbrak?”_

Eddie looks down at her phone. Mike Hanlon. Derry. Bev. Ben. Bill. Stan. _Richie._

Eddie doesn’t see the light go amber. Or red. She hits the intersection going ninety and the truck emerging from its lane on her left hits her car at fifty.

_“I’ll see you soon,” Richie smiles. She had to get braces three months ago. She’s always complaining that she can feel her teeth moving. Eddie told her that’s normal but she won’t stop complaining anyway._

_“No, you won’t,” Eddie says, harshly. Her mother is waiting in the car, her bags loaded into the boot, her boxes full of possessions occupying the space in the back of a U-Haul truck already on its way to New York. They’re already behind schedule. Eddie doesn’t care, for once in her life. “I’m gonna be four hundred and fifty miles away.”_

_“Aw, Eds,” Richie kicks her shin, lightly, with her ratty converse shoe, “you never did have any faith in me, did you.”_

_Eddie rolls her eyes, shifting her weight from foot to foot, “Don’t call me that.”_

_“Gotta get them in while I can, Spaghetti,” she says, her voice all matter-of-fact._

_Eddie frowns, and kicks the pavement. “It’s not gonna be forever,” she offers, half-heartedly. There’s no way her mother will let her come back here, but she can still hope. “I’ll come visit.”_

_“No fucking way. Don’t ever come back. I’ll come to you. I’ll walk if that’s what it takes.”_

_“Please don’t walk to New York.”_

_“I’ll do what I want.” Then her expression sobers. “I’ll see you again. We’ll keep in contact. And then, when we’re adults and shit, you can get away from your mom and you can come and live with me.”_

_Eddie kind of wants to cry. The goodbye party, held in the clubhouse, consisting of her, Richie, Mike, and Stan was morose and tear felt. Another member leaving. Bill, Bev, and Ben never wrote back to any of their letters. Eddie knows they’re afraid that’ll be her too. She’ll have to send the first letter as her mother hasn’t even told her what their new address is. “Richie…” she tries, but falls short. She really wants to cry right now._

_“You won’t be able to get rid of me,” Richie says and when Eddie’s eyes start to water she steps forward and takes her hands. “Hey, I promise you, Eds, we’re gonna meet up again, and then it’s gonna be forever. You know I don’t break my promises.”_

_Eddie tugs her into a quick hug and whispers, “Bye, Richie.”_

_Her mother honks the car horn and they break away. “Write to me,” Richie calls as Eddie walks to the passenger door of the car. Richie’s smile is tight on her face and Eddie’s got to be imagining the tears gathering in her eyes behind the thick lenses of her glasses. “Or I might die of boredom.”_

_Eddie watches her friend disappear in the rearview mirror and then slumps into her seat and cries._

~

They couldn’t find Eddie’s phone in what was left of the car, which means it’s gone. They’re doing a final checkup on her, and she’s running her hand over the left side of her skull where they had to shave the hair away to get at her many head wounds, when Richie suddenly bursts in. She looks sick to her stomach and frantic, but when she locks eyes with Eddie she sobs with relief and hurries over.

_“Edith fucking Kaspbrak,”_ she yells as she hurries over, “you are a motherfucking _risk analyst,_ how the _fuck_ did you not see the risk in _speeding,_ in _answering your phone while driving,_ in _looking away from the road-“_

Eddie closes her eyes and holds her hands out, “Richie, calm down-“

“I _will not!_ What if you had _died?_ What then, huh?” Richie reaches her and winces, looking at her face, clocking the shorn side of her head and flinching, looking horrified. “God, how badly are you hurt?”

“She has a severe concussion.” The nurse who patched Eddie up says, gently. “Please don’t yell.”

“What happened?” Richie grinds out. She looks a little green, and her fists are clenched at her sides.

“Her car was struck on the drivers side by a truck at an intersection,” the nurse informs her. “She hit her head against the drivers side window and broke two fingers on her left hand.”

“It could be much worse,” Eddie interjects, woozily.

“You, shut up,” Richie shoots back, pointing at her, then points at the nurse, asking, “You, painkillers?”

“Yes. One in the morning and one at night, make sure she’s getting proper rest and keep a good eye on her. If she complains of headaches, dizziness or nausea bring her back in.” The nurse consults the chart attached to the bed they’ve got her sitting on. It’s just a checkup room in the ER, but it’s still pretty private. “Right now you can let her sleep, as long as she can hold a conversation with you, and can walk properly. Also look out for dilated pupils. It’s also best to wake her a few times during the night to make sure she can respond well.”

“Okay, thank you,” Richie says and the nurse vacates the room, looking awkward. Eddie knows she’s in for it.

“Richie, I’m sorry,” she gets in before Richie can say anything, before the door even clicks shut.

“You fucking should be,” Richie seethes, beginning to pace. “You scared the _fuck_ out of me. I thought you were _dead._ I thought you’d _died,_ Eddie.” She takes off her glasses and holds her wrist against her eyes, adding, “I was so _fucking scared_ I’d lost you.”

“Hey, hey, Richie, no…” Eddie says and gets up to comfort her. Her knees buckle and a second later Richie’s caught her under the armpits and lifted her back onto the bed. She’s still crying. Eddie wants to cry too. Eddie pulls Richie into her arms, lying back on the bed as Richie sobs into her neck. The ceiling slowly spins above her. She feels so tired.

“Who were you talking to?” Richie mumbles when she manages to reel back the sobbing. She’s lying on her side, next to Eddie.

“I thought it was Steve. I thought he was calling about you,” she explains, softly. The memory is hazy, the phone call too short to actually constitute a conversation. Eddie squeezes her eyes shut. She’s scared. “But it…Richie, Mike called you too, didn’t she? That’s why you-“

“Oh my god, she called you?” Eddie opens her eyes. Richic’e gone ashen. _“Fuck._ Did she tell you-?”

“I know there’s only one reason she’d reach out now.” Eddie says, lowly. The thought looms and she pushes it away. Not now. She swallows the lump in her throat. “I can put the pieces together myself.”

“We don’t have to go,” Richie says, almost desperately. “You’re hurt, that’s a good excuse.”

Eddie rolls onto her back, eyes closing for a moment, just a moment, okay? “Richie, we promised,” she sighs. The scar on her hand, the same scar Richie bears, almost _stings_ at the mention of its existence, at the mention of _why_ it exists.

“I didn’t remember that, though. I didn’t remember _you.”_ And god that hurts, the pain in Richie’s voice hurts especially. “From before, from that summer, before you _left-“_

Eddie lifts her uninjured hand to cover her face. “I’m sorry-“

“This really ruins my bit about meeting you for the first time now that it’s actually my meeting you for a second time.”

“You couldn’t have known,” Eddie tells her seriously, ruining her attempt to lighten the mood. _“I_ didn’t know.”

Richie exhales through her nose and says, “Eddie, I’m scared.”

“I know you are.” Eddie tells her, thinking surely there’s got to be some reason they have to do this. There really isn’t except that they promised. “So am I.”

They hold each other’s gazes for a moment, and then Richie closes her eyes and smiles, “I really can’t take you seriously with this new haircut.”

“Shut up,” Eddie groans, and whacks her with a pillow. “I’m tired.”

“Okay. I’ll go get your painkillers and then we can go home.”

Eddie grimaces, thinking of Mike’s phone call. “We need to-“

“We’ll talk about it tomorrow,” Richie promises. “Right now I’m not sure if you’re lucid enough to be making this decision.”

~

Richie lets her sleep for a while, but wakes her at three am.

“Eddie, hey, _Eddie,”_ she whispers shaking Eddie’s arm. “Baby, sugarplum.”

Eddie sighs and says, _“Nicknames.”_

“I know,” Richie laughs and kisses her nose. “When’s my birthday?”

Eddie thinks, what time is it, leave me alone, it’s a Saturday night why are you disturbing me, and then says, “May eighteenth, 1976.”

“Okay, go back to sleep, Eddie.” Eddie remembers the stitches on the side of her head. Eddie remembers crashing her car. She shudders. Richie clasps her hand. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

“Are you gonna sleep?” Eddie yawns, already half-asleep.

“I’m not tired.” Richie lies.

~

Eddie gets up at six-thirty and goes to the bathroom to piss. Despite Richie’s claim that she didn’t want to sleep she was snoring in bed. 

Everything’s hazy until Eddie catches sight of her reflection in the mirror and frowns. A whole clump of hair from the left side of her head is shorn down, angry red skin raising under the stitches holding her small head wounds together, and she hates it. It’s like when she was little and her mother would always pick what happened to Eddie’s hair, which, more often than not, was a shoulder length cut and renewal of bangs.

Eddie remembers that now, remembers pinning her bangs aside when she knew she’d be hanging out with the Losers that day. _God,_ she remembers _that,_ too. The Losers. The Quarry and the Barrens and the Clubhouse. Richie’s feet in her face lying in that hammock.

After she moved out of her mothers house in Brooklyn for college, she grew out her bangs and her hair, categorically refused to cut it except for the occasional trim to keep it healthy, growing it longer and longer as the years went on. Now Eddie’s hair isn’t hers again. The long waves are disrupted. _She_ is disrupted.

Eddie digs in the cabinet below the sink for a moment. Richie has a lot of old things from her early twenties that she brought with her when she moved in. This includes old hair scissors and clippers. Her broken fingers hinder the scissors, as she is left handed, so all of the cuts, the slices of her long hair up to chin length, are jagged and diagonal. Eddie ignores it, even though she itches.

By the time Richie stumbles into the bathroom blearily half an hour later, Eddie’s running a comb through the hair still curling on top of her head. She’s shorn down the sides and the back, as best she can, leaving the hair on top long enough to flop across her forehead, long enough to be styled, short enough to be hidden under a beanie. Eddie’s never had short hair before and she doesn’t know if she likes how it frames her face but for now it’ll work. Richie stands in the doorway for a moment, just squinting at her.

Then she walks out and returns a moment later wearing her glasses. Eddie shuffles awkwardly, and Richie pulls her into her arms, kissing her soundly. “Eds, I don’t know what started this,” she says softly, “but you’re fucking _hot."_

“Richie,” Eddie groans, pushing her away. At least she can count on her wife to be consistent.

“I’m serious, you’ve turned into a milf.”

“Ew.” They kiss a little more and then Eddie says, “can you get the back for me?”

“Of course.” They never get soft moments like this. They’re perfectly capable of them, they just bicker too much to let go for too long. They mostly do this after sex when Richie’s too tired to be snarky and Eddie can relax. Richie fixes the back of her head, and then spends a few minutes pressing kisses into Eddie’s neck and shoulders and upper back. Eddie lets it continue on, even though the left side of her face is bruised and her fingers on her left hand ache as they wrap around Richie’s shoulder when she spins her and kisses her passionately. She needs this reassurance after last night, after this rift opened up in their lives revealing this life they both forgot, revealing the fear living in the half-beats of their hearts.

Richie talks Eddie into joining her shower, dipping to press kisses into her collarbone, saying, “C’mon, we don’t have anything to do today, indulge me.” In the end Eddie relents, knowing there’s hair sticking to her arms and shoulders. They spend too much time kissing under the spray. Eddie doesn’t let it go too far, leaving Richie with a purpling bruise on her collar and a peck on her lips.

Eddie goes back to their bedroom, the bathroom door standing open a smidge so Eddie can hear the running water and the absence of Richie’s usual shower singing. When she emerges, not too long after, Eddie’s sitting on the bed, dressed and staring at her hands. The silver band on her ring finger glints at her. Everything is so different now. She won’t say that to Richie, though.

“We never talked about kids,” is what she says, instead.

“Eddie.” Richie sits down beside her. Eddie doesn’t think she’s seen her wife so subdued since her mother died. She cracks a smile when she sees eddie staring, and wraps an arm around Eddie’s shoulder. “With all our trauma I’m not too sure we’d be great at it. Parenting, that is.”

“I know,” Eddie says, quietly, voice void of the usual heat it has when they have conversations. Richie must notice, bless her, of course she notices, and her arm stiffens along the line of Eddie’s shoulder. “But now we’ll never get to make that choice.”

Richie laughs, hollowly, nervously, and she asks, “Why are you talking like we’re gonna die there?”

“C’mon Richie, don’t be dumb,” _there’s_ the heat, _there’s_ the anger, the disbelief that Richie could consider going back to Derry and not know the danger was too great there. “You and I both know what It’s capable of.”

“We beat It before,” she says.

“Now It knows our gimmick,” Eddie counters.

Richie releases her, and turns her body fully to face Eddie, “And we know Its too!”

“Face the facts. We got lucky last time,” Eddie says, harshly and gets up from the bed. Her shoes have little platforms in them. Usually she’s still a few inches off being as tall as Richie, but now with Richie still sitting on the bed she looms, and suddenly holds the power. She’s not sure she likes it. “It wasn’t expecting us to be as resilient as we were. What’s the likelihood It underestimates us again? What’s the likelihood we all walk out unscathed?”

“Eddie,” Richie says softly, her ability to shove through anything, no matter how delicate disappeared.

“I’m not brave enough. I’m not gonna - Richie, I’m the weak link.” Eddie gasps, and grasps what’s left of her hair, what’s left of her before It can touch her again, and oh god, she forgot what it felt like to not be able to breathe. She stops for a second, gulping down oxygen, because she knows it’s not real, it’s never been real, she doesn’t need an aspirator, because she’s not asthmatic, she’s just got an undiagnosed number of disorders and a fuckton of childhood trauma. She looks up Richie who’s staring at her, frozen. “If we fail the reason we did will be _me._ I’m gonna get everyone _killed.”_

Richie stands, “That is _not_ true-“

“It is!” Eddie shouts. “I’m useless and chickenshit and _useless_ and _sick-“_

“You’re _not sick!_ She just wanted you to _think_ that so she could _control_ you! She wanted you to think you were sick and dirty and _wrong_ so you’d always come back to her, but _she_ was wrong, and you are _none_ of those things.” Richie moves to her and Eddie let’s her. It’s been seventeen years. She forgets that sometimes. Seventeen years since Richie Tozier reappeared in her life. Like the six years they were separated never existed. Richie takes her wrists in hand makes steady eye contact with Eddie. She says, “You are my wife and the fucking bravest person I know, and if you think for one _second_ that I’m gonna let your mother control you again you’re dead wrong.”

Eddie wants to cry again. Instead she sinks to her knees and pulls Richie down onto the carpet with her. “Richie.” She says, shakily.

“We have to go.” Richie says, and pulls her into her arms. She holds tightly, like she’ll never let go. Eddie wishes she wouldn’t. “But I _promise_ you - I won’t let It hurt you.”

“You can’t promise that,” Eddie hisses.

“Like _hell_ I can’t. I’m really good at keeping promises.” She presses a kiss to Eddie’s head, to the new short hair there. Eddie thinks back to them standing on the sidewalk, to Richie and her braces, to _Eds, we’re gonna meet up again, and then it’s gonna be forever. You know I don’t break my promises._ “Where’d all that bravery from last night go? You were insisting we had to go last night, I was the scared one.”

“I remembered what there was to be scared of.” Eddie admits. “I’ve never been a hero, Richie.”

“Well,” Richie says, “Eddie Spaghetti has always been _my_ hero.”

~

So they go to Derry.

It’s a quiet affair of packing everything they need into two bags and getting in a taxi and holding hands the entire ride to the airport. They only let go when they go through security. They hold hands during take-off, and they hold hands during touchdown, and they kiss in the bathroom, helplessly frightened, and Eddie knows it’s Richie trying to convince herself that she can keep her promise, and Eddie knows it’s probably the last time they’ll be alone together for a while.

Before it all seemed so simple. Now she doesn’t know. Now she’s back in Maine and she knows she might never go home again.

  
  
  


**fin.**

**Author's Note:**

> Whoop, I’m writing a second part. Thanks for reading, please pretty please leave me a comment because I crave validation, and hmu on Tumblr @nose-coffee yo. Once again, thanks :)


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